MrNewportCustom
Call Me a Cab
- Messages
- 2,265
- Location
- Outer Los Angeles
I took yesterday off from work. My reason? My sister spent a couple of weeks going through hundreds of slides of our family and placing them in projector carrosels - a total of 800 slides were viewed, and about 150 more that were, in most cases, pictures duplicating others that weren't.
I'm the fifth of seven children, so there were a lot of memories shared last night. Some of them I'd forgotten (the steer my oldest sister raised for her high school FFA course, for instance), even more that I'd remembered, and some that I didn't even know about. There were many photos of our father, and we remembered many things he'd done with us and for us. Yet, we were still able to make a few jokes about him. He would have liked the jokes. We know he would have.
Some memories we saw:
The cork oak in our front yard shortly after it was planted and only three inches thick. It's now more than three feet thick. My mother planted it in '57.
A lot of my mother's paintings.
Visits to and trips with aunts, uncles, cousins, grandmothers and grandfathers on both sides of the family; Birthday parties, school events, graduations and weddings; family and company picnics in "Dennis the Menace" park in Whittier; trips to the observatories at Palomar and Mount Wilson, where my father knew some people who gave him access to areas where tourists weren't allowed; Going to Rose Hills Memorial park to view the rose gardens and koi ponds; Trips to Watts Towers, Clay Canyon Campground, the Sequoias, Sea World and Disneyland; Trips to Brice and Zion Canyons, Yosemite and Timberline.
Our '59 Ford station wagon that I wish I had now; the '55 Ford Customline two-door with three-on-the-tree that my older brother, Mark, learned to drive in; The green Ford pick-up my father drove for Midway Tools as a company car; The '72 AMC Gremlin, the '72 Ford ClubWagon van and '72 Komfort camper trailer that took us to the places mentioned above. And my older brother even pointed out the '60 two-door Chevy station wagon that he'd bought from a neighbor, parked down the street before he'd bought it.
Childhood friends.
Pets: Cats with names like Stuff, Popcorn, Myrna, Muffin, Cicero (named such because my mother couldn't remember the name of Cicero's cat in the old Mutt and Jeff cartoon strip. Which, fortunately for Cicero, the cat's name was Desdamona. lol), Tuffy, (later changed to Goofy because he liked apricots fresh from the tree), Stormy, Tie-Dye and Sherlock; Dogs named Barney, George, Monique and Phydeaux among others, as well as guinea pigs, rabbits and ducks.
The clothes we wore in the '60s, '70s and '80s; In the '60s, Dad, Mark and I wore matching shirts that my mother made, and we later saw one of our sisters in a skirt of the same fabric. The hair styles we wore; My sisters all had long hair and mine went to my shoulders in the late '70s/early '80s, making me look like a cocker spaniel.
My family loves laughter, and we spent the night joking about the pictures we saw. Oftentimes, we went back a slide or two to look at one of them again to point out something specific or to crack another joke. A lot of jokes flew over the slides of my younger brother, at about six years old, dressed as a little girl for Hallowe'en - we brought him home and put him in another costume, because no one believed he was actually a boy. lol
My sister gave the evening a theme: "Premiere Night." She even rolled out (taped down, actually) the red carpet for us as we entered her home, and at the end of the evening she presented a mock award to our mother for "making this event possible."
It was a wonderful evening, and I thank my sister dearly for all the work she did to make it happen. It was all her idea. Thank you, Peggy. We love you.
Lee
I'm the fifth of seven children, so there were a lot of memories shared last night. Some of them I'd forgotten (the steer my oldest sister raised for her high school FFA course, for instance), even more that I'd remembered, and some that I didn't even know about. There were many photos of our father, and we remembered many things he'd done with us and for us. Yet, we were still able to make a few jokes about him. He would have liked the jokes. We know he would have.
Some memories we saw:
The cork oak in our front yard shortly after it was planted and only three inches thick. It's now more than three feet thick. My mother planted it in '57.
A lot of my mother's paintings.
Visits to and trips with aunts, uncles, cousins, grandmothers and grandfathers on both sides of the family; Birthday parties, school events, graduations and weddings; family and company picnics in "Dennis the Menace" park in Whittier; trips to the observatories at Palomar and Mount Wilson, where my father knew some people who gave him access to areas where tourists weren't allowed; Going to Rose Hills Memorial park to view the rose gardens and koi ponds; Trips to Watts Towers, Clay Canyon Campground, the Sequoias, Sea World and Disneyland; Trips to Brice and Zion Canyons, Yosemite and Timberline.
Our '59 Ford station wagon that I wish I had now; the '55 Ford Customline two-door with three-on-the-tree that my older brother, Mark, learned to drive in; The green Ford pick-up my father drove for Midway Tools as a company car; The '72 AMC Gremlin, the '72 Ford ClubWagon van and '72 Komfort camper trailer that took us to the places mentioned above. And my older brother even pointed out the '60 two-door Chevy station wagon that he'd bought from a neighbor, parked down the street before he'd bought it.
Childhood friends.
Pets: Cats with names like Stuff, Popcorn, Myrna, Muffin, Cicero (named such because my mother couldn't remember the name of Cicero's cat in the old Mutt and Jeff cartoon strip. Which, fortunately for Cicero, the cat's name was Desdamona. lol), Tuffy, (later changed to Goofy because he liked apricots fresh from the tree), Stormy, Tie-Dye and Sherlock; Dogs named Barney, George, Monique and Phydeaux among others, as well as guinea pigs, rabbits and ducks.
The clothes we wore in the '60s, '70s and '80s; In the '60s, Dad, Mark and I wore matching shirts that my mother made, and we later saw one of our sisters in a skirt of the same fabric. The hair styles we wore; My sisters all had long hair and mine went to my shoulders in the late '70s/early '80s, making me look like a cocker spaniel.
My family loves laughter, and we spent the night joking about the pictures we saw. Oftentimes, we went back a slide or two to look at one of them again to point out something specific or to crack another joke. A lot of jokes flew over the slides of my younger brother, at about six years old, dressed as a little girl for Hallowe'en - we brought him home and put him in another costume, because no one believed he was actually a boy. lol
My sister gave the evening a theme: "Premiere Night." She even rolled out (taped down, actually) the red carpet for us as we entered her home, and at the end of the evening she presented a mock award to our mother for "making this event possible."
It was a wonderful evening, and I thank my sister dearly for all the work she did to make it happen. It was all her idea. Thank you, Peggy. We love you.
Lee
